Klezmer is fashionable and often is used as a synonym for the numerous and very different Jewish musical traditions that exist across the globe. Admittedly, it’s an inadequately restrictive viewpoint which neglects other Jewish musical traditions. Jüdische Musiktraditionen by the ethnomusicologists Joel Rubin and Rita Ottens is intended for use in music education in the schools, but is also of interest for a general readership. Here, liturgical music traditions, differences between Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions, Hasidic nigunim (songs of spiritual elevation) and Yiddish songs, songs of the ghettos and resistance fighters, as well as Israeli popular music are discussed. Step by step, with notated musical examples and an instructive accompanying CD with musical examples, a veritable cosmos of musical traditions is unveiled, offering a view into Jewish life and thought over the centuries that is too little known. more...

Klezmer-Musik is not about the current klezmer revival in America and its followers in Europe, but rather about the musical tradition of the klezmorim and their culture, which developed in eastern Europe as a way of life within a society governed by Jewish religious customs. The result is the collective biography of the klezmer musicians of eastern Europe and their immediate successors, told from the perspective of the musicians themselves. For the first time, the roots of klezmer music in the Jewish religion, its originally magical function and its place within the medieval folk beliefs of the Ashkenazic Jews of the Rhineland are described. With a multidisciplinary approach combining elements of ethnomusicology, historical musicology, Judaic studies, comparative religion and literature, history, sociology and cultural studies, it was possible to reconstruct the complex developments in traditional klezmer music and to show its path over generations and continents. Klezmer-Musik is the result of over ten years of interviews and research in the United States, eastern and western Europe and Israel. Joel Rubin’s scholarly research as an ethnomusicologist and his practical work as a performing musician – in particular with the Epstein Brothers and Pete Sokolow, and Israeli hasidic musicians – opened the doors to a world which enriched the authors’ research and made this book possible. more...